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Friday, 28 October 2016

FERRUGINOUS DUCK

Dave Bilcock discovered a drake FERRUGINOUS DUCK
at WILSTONE RESERVOIR on Tuesday (25th) which was still present today Thursday
27th October (see Dave's shots below). It is frequenting the Drayton Bank, keeping close to the shallow
water at the edge and diving, best observed from the car park steps. The fact
that it has a bright, pearly-white eye suggests that it is an adult drake. It
also represents our first record here since 2002! It puts Ian Williams on an
impressive 150 for the year - once again the leading lister within the Tring
Reservoirs' boundary.

Overall, there has been a massive arrival of
wildfowl at Tring, with some impressive numbers present. For example,
click-counting revealed the presence of no fewer than 170 Mallard, 33 Gadwall,
522 Teal, 680 Wigeon, 98 Shoveler, 278 Tufted Duck and a staggering 215 Northern
Pochard, while Red-crested Pochard numbers have climbed to 7. Add to that the 26
Mute Swan, 47 Greylag Geese, 5 Little Grebe, 6 Little Egret, 4 PINTAIL, 3 Common
Snipe & 2 JACK SNIPE, then plenty to wade through! More and more EUROPEAN
GOLDEN PLOVER have been arriving daily, so much so that the flock on the mud has
now reached 179 in number, while a single DUNLIN joined them today. Eurasian
Skylark have been passing over in small numbers, with up to 4 Grey Wagtails on
site. The Common Kingfisher remains.

The drake RING-NECKED DUCK has been commuting
back & forth to STARTOP'S END RESERVOIR, where also the drake GREATER SCAUP
remains. The 17 Great Crested Grebe on there represents the highest count so far
this winter

About Me

I have been birding since 1969 but became obsessed with 'twitching' in 1974 and haven't looked back since. Have driven over 1.3 million miles in pursuit of rare birds in the UK, where to date I have recorded 588 species in Britain and Ireland. I also have a fascination for the Birds of the Western Palearctic, where I have currently recorded 880 of the 1,064 species ever recorded. I am widely travelled in North America, as well as in Africa and Asia, and have written at least 29 books on my chosen subject, including best-sellers ''Ultimate Site Guide to Scarcer British Birds' and 'Rare Birds in Britain 1800-1990'. Established the UK400 Club in 1981 to cater for the most obsessive of the British birding fraternity and now concentrate on online publishing, via the www.uk400clubonline.co.uk website. Record Birding achievements include recording 386 species in Britain & Ireland in 1996 and 627+ in the Western Palearctic in 2008